Okay, I think it’s pretty obvious to regular Climate Progress readers who the winner is.  Indeed, I was originally going to ask readers to vote on the winner from the top 10 list below — but it’d be like asking readers to vote for which major sports figure fell from grace farthest this year.  As always, though, I welcome your thoughts on the “winners” and any omissions.

I do a lot of media criticism, so I thought I would end the year with an award for the major media outlet and/or reporter who has moved furthest from journalistic excellence.  Next year I might name the award after this year’s winner, but for now, it’ll be named after Citizen Kane‘s “Declaration of Principles,” which publisher Charles Foster Kane idealistically enunciated early on in the film classic, but later on “Without reading it, Kane tears it up, throws it into the wastebasket at his side.”  And no, I’m not including any of the “new media” in the list because none of them has even one-tenth the impact of any of the major media outlets on this list nor do most of them claim to be journalists.

And yes the entire media deserves a dishonorable mention for its generally poor coverage of climate science, politics, and economics this year:

• The clean energy revolution will not be televised, Part 2: Kathleen Hall Jamieson lambastes MSM for under-reporting climate bill
• U.S. media largely ignores latest warning from climate scientists: “Recent observations confirm “¦ the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised” “” 1000 ppm
• CNN, ABC, WashPost, AP, blow Australian wildfire, drought, heatwave “Hell (and High Water) on Earth” story “” never mention climate change

Skipping the musical number I had prepared for the awards ceremony, let’s dive straight into the top ten list:

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Now that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have returned from Copenhagen with a draft accord committing China, India, and the United States to a new era of climate action, the onus lies on the U.S. Senate to pass ambitious clean energy legislation. “Not a chance in hell that after the president put American prestige on the line in Copenhagen that the Senate is going to give this issue anything less than a major push,” Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) told reporters. “This is big — big — bigger than any individual agenda.” Unfortunately, many members continue to treat the dire need to reduce emissions and rebuild our economy as a political football. In particular, members who previously used China and India’s lack of commitment to emissions reductions as an excuse for inaction are now trying to redefine the Copenhagen Accord as meaningless. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) led the pack, calling the accord a “nothing-burger“:

It’s a nothing-burger.

McCain then admitted he hadn’t actually read the agreement. But he is joined by fellow members on the right and left of the aisle who are continuing to argue that energy reform is too difficult to attempt. They are attempting to move the goalposts, as well. Even though China has now committed to transparent emissions reductions, senators are arguing that because China can’t really be trusted, we still shouldn’t act:

Sherrod Brown (D-OH): “If we don’t do this right, a company in Lima, Ohio, shuts down and moves to Wuhan, and we lose jobs.”

Bob Casey (D-PA): “The reality for states like Pennsylvania is, even as we move forward with any kind of climate change legislation, there are going to be cost impacts. We want to make sure we’re not adding yet another cost impact that other countries don’t have to shoulder.”

Susan Collins (R-ME): “Right now, I would say that cap and trade is stalled.”

Chris Dodd (D-CT): “It will take a lot of work. We need to take a break around here and step back before we try anything of any controversy.”

Ted Kaufman (D-DE): “If China will not let us verify, we’re going to have a heck of a time here. An agreement’s no good if you can’t verify.”

Carl Levin (D-MI): “Unless India and China are bound and we know what the details are—I don’t think necessarily that their agreeing to goals or whatever it was they agreed to will have an effect on cap and trade. If there was a binding agreement that tied them into limits that were meaningful, then I think that would have advanced the legislation. From what I understand of this, it’s more of agreeing to goals.”

Jay Rockefeller (D-WV): “I think that the Chinese are perfectly capable of being on board for something and then not doing it.”

George Voinovich (R-OH): “I know for a fact that even though the government of China says they are committed to X and Y, the economy in China is run by the governors of the state.”

However, as Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) explained, the do-nothings in the Senate are dangerously misreading China’s role. The real concern should be that China and other nations are already taking the “green leap forward” and are far ahead in the climate race. The inability of the U.S. Congress to set a price on carbon and direct investment into a clean-energy economy is dooming American competitiveness and American jobs now, as well as the fate of future generations:

We have a responsibility to deal with this issue. We have to acknowledge the obvious. China, one of our great competitors in the world, is taking the green leap forward, as they say. They are committing themselves to this new energy-efficient economy, and they are building companies even in the United States that will make those products. Will the United States stand by the sidelines or will we be part of this leap forward? I don’t want to lose those jobs.

Hoisting One for Wind Power: Climbing Crane Expected to Keep Vestas Turbines Spinning

A Danish wind-power provider develops its own technology to maintain towering turbines in gusts roaring at up to 15 meters per second

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“This disaster shows that the term ‘clean coal’ is an oxymoron. It’s akin to saying ‘safe cigarette.’ Clean coal doesn’t exist.”

The subhead quote is from Elliott Negin of the Union of Concerned Scientists a year ago on NBC:

Even the NYT editorialized at the time on the “Collapse of the Clean Coal Myth.”

Sadly, the Washington Post reports today that the dirty coal is still there, quoting one of the locals saying, “I don’t think they will ever get it cleaned up“:

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A comprehensive assessment by Harvard economist Robert Stavins

We may look back upon Copenhagen as an important moment — both because global leaders took the reins of the procedures and brought the negotiations to a fruitful conclusion, and because the foundation was laid for a broad-based coalition of the willing to address effectively the threat of global climate change.  Only time will tell.

This guest post by Robert Stavins, Director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program, was first published here.

After years of preparation, the Fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP-15) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) commenced on December 7^th, 2009, and adjourned some two weeks later on December 19^th after a raucous all-night session.  The original purpose of the conference had been to complete negotiations on a new international agreement on climate change to come into force when the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period comes to an end in 2012.  But for at least the past six months, it had become clear to virtually all participants that such a goal was out of reach “” and the COP-15 objective was publically downgraded in mid-November to a non-binding agreement by heads of state at a meeting in Singapore of the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference.

I begin by describing what were reasonable expectations going into the Copenhagen negotiations and appropriate definitions of success for COP-15, and then turn to the unprecedented process which unfolded over the final 36 hours of the conference.  Next, I describe the fundamental architecture of the sole product that emerged – the Copenhagen Accord – and describe its key provisions, with an assessment of each component.  I close with an examination of the major pending issues and the available procedural routes ahead.

Sensible Expectations and Definitions of Success for Copenhagen

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This is a guest post by CAP senior fellow Tom Kenworthy.

In its authoritative report on “Global Climate Change Impacts in the U.S.” issued last June, the U.S. Global Change Research Program left little doubt of what’s at stake for the Great Plains in a warming world.

Projected changes in long-term climate and more frequent extreme events such as heat waves, droughts, and heavy rainfall will affect many aspects of life in the Great Plains. These include the region’s already threatened water resources, essential agricultural and ranching activities, unique natural and prorected areas, and the health and prosperity of its inhabitants.

Consensus predictions of more frequent and severe heat waves, droughts, flash floods, and falling crop yields have convinced 20 leading North Dakota scientists to join together as a science advisory panel to the North Dakota Climate Solutions Partnership. In doing so, the scientists from seven state universities and colleges issued a statement of principles affirming the overwhelming scientific conclusion that the earth’s climate is warming and that human activity is driving much of that change:

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A Primer on the HOME STAR Program

Bracken Hendricks explains the HOME STAR program, which provides incentives to make homes and offices energy efficient while creating jobs.

Yes, it’s pretty much 2010 or bust for the bipartisan climate and clean energy bill